1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate, in general, to robotic hardware integration and more particularly to abstraction of robotic components enabling rapid reconfiguration and universal application of core capabilities.
2. Relevant Background
Robots are used for many purposes. Today robots are routinely found in industrial applications in which repetitive and otherwise monotonous task are efficiently undertaken by specialized machines. Robotic technology has also found applications in accomplishing tasks that are either undesirable to be performed by humans or are inherently dangerous.
For example robots are currently used to explore buildings during a fire enabling firefighters to determine if anyone is trapped within the structure without needlessly risking the life of the firefighter. Similarly robots are used in a wide variety of other dangerous application in which the risk of loss of human life or injury is significant. Robots can also be employed as toys and as devices by which to make our everyday tasks more enjoyable.
While the applications for robotic technology continues to grow and an expanding speed, and the hardware technology by which the robots accomplish these tasks are increasingly sophisticated, the underlying robotic architecture has remained relatively unchanged.
Each robotic device is essentially customer designed, built an utilized. And while several robots may be built to accomplish the same task, there is little ability for a robot to adapt to a different task. The underlying control system is very opaque. FIG. 1 is a typical robotic architecture 100 as would be known to one or reasonable skill in the robotic art. As shown, most robots include some robotic architecture 120 coupled to a variety of sensors 110 and actuators 130. The sensors collect data which is passed to the architecture. The architecture processes the data and, when appropriate, issues commands to one or more actuators.
While this type of “customized” approach works well for very critical tasks and specialized applications it does not offer any sort of wide utilization of core robotic technology. Using the model of the prior art, each robotic application must be customized, tested and built with little room for modifications and universal (or even expanded) applications. For example imagine a robotic device used to weld to pieces to metal together during the constructions of a automobile. Not only is such a process repetitive and monotonous it can be hazardous. However the robot is likely designed with a specific task in mind. Should the design of the car change, if is very likely that the robot will be unable to meet the needs of the new design. In which case the entire software controlling the robot and perhaps even the hardware components must be redesigned.
What is needed is a system and robotic architecture in which the fundamental robotic functionality of both software and hardware are abstracted so as to be universally applicable to a wide variety of robotic components. Such a system would enable a core intelligence module to be identical across a wide variety of payloads and tasks. These and other challenges of the prior art are addressed by one or more embodiments of the present invention.